Battle.net Desktop Client
The new Battle.net desktop client has been tested internally for some time now. It appears that testing is nearly here, as the Battle.net support site has been updated with related help articles.

Currently only a Windows version has appeared for testing, but by the looks of the jobs page, a OS X version is in development as well. Unfortunately we are only able to see the offline mode for now, but there are a lot of features in the mockups.

Keep in mind this is not an official preview, and many, many, many things will change before release.

This replaces the launcher for all Blizzard games, and works similar to the current launchers, with background updates, repair tool, and more.

Chat with Battle.net friends across every Battle.net enabled game.

News - You can see all of the news from the various Battle.net game sites in the client.

Store - NYI?

Forums - NYI?

Profiles - NYI?

Install and Launcher

News View

Launcher

Settings

Battle.Net Client Mockups
These do not represent the final client at all, just a snapshot of development plans in the past. The final client will not look like this.

Client Avatars
These are likely to be the avatars that you can pick from when creating a Battle.net profile.

Client Backgrounds

News Backgrounds

Misc Screenshots

Support Pages
Some of the Battle.net support pages have been updated to reflect the new client:

Seriously tho, I already hate when I have to run Origin next to Steam and now I'll have to run this crap. Few years down the road, every publisher will have it's own Steam alike app and my computer will be running 50 of those in the background or what.

Not gonna happen.

EDIT: also since when does StarCraft 2 subscription based and requires game time to be added?

Mockups are meant to give an initial impression of features or layout.
Their content is often placeholder and not meant to be accurate.
It is entirely possible that they meant to do WoW game time and someone did it wrong, or they simply did not care about getting that accurate.

At present you can skip the launcher and only run it when you need to do updates.
It is a reasonable assumption you can continue to do that.

No new launcher yet has removed this option, so why the instant assumption that you HAVE to go through this one to reach the game.

There are a lot of things Steam does right, so really is trying to take some of those on a bad thing ?
Also I think the typical style of the World of Warcraft interface is outdated, and would benefit from a modern touch.
The likes of the MiirGui @ wowinterface graphics replacements shows what I mean.